Hjorth ‘Caesar’ broken cast iron trivet repair

Having met up at this year’s Newark meet, @igh371 sold me the Caesar for a very nominal sum with its known issue of a trivet broken into four pieces.






I was confident that a high silver content (55% silver) brazing rod would put things right, not requiring an extreme temperature to join the parts so avoiding exposing the delicate filigree casting to thermal stress, yet creating strong joints fully capable of coping with the heat of the wick burners.

The silbraze was applied from the reverse side so that raised fillets of braze metal would go unseen with the stove in use yet would confer additional strength to the bonds in the thin section of the castings.






Application of stove polish and a light buffing with a cloth created a pleasing finish to the trivet.






Returned to the stove, it’s its crowning glory!






I removed a pair of inflexible, hardened wicks, with replacements on order in two thicknesses to achieve the optimum ease of movement of the wick raising mechanism.




Inscriptions








Caesar’s return to Newark is in prospect in 2027.



John

 

Nice brazing on the cast iron, John.

I’ve a box with broken and badly cracked cast iron to mend.

Cheers

Tony

 

Fantastic piece of work John, and you certainly haven't wasted any time either! Definitely has found the right home now

Can't wait to see how it looks once the new wicks are in and it can be put to work once again. Should put out a fair bit of heat. It was the largest 'wickie' Hjorth ever put on the market


@presscall

 

Nice work on the trivet, John.
And the stove looks good too.

 

Great repair John, it was obviously meant to fall apart in your hands! It looks very smart now polished.

Strange to see that familiar style of tank inscription on a wick stove.

I know we discussed the irony of Primus- a company which made wick stoves the next best thing- eventually manufacturing a product which their company made almost redundant, in order to cater for every market. But I hadn't noticed the filler cap bore the pressure stove emblem- talk about rubbing it in!

 

Hail Caesar!

 

I second that emotion. Well done indeed.

Ben

 

Neither had I at first look Chris. It’s as though Bjorth wanted a Caesar user to be reminded of what they should be using every time they refilled the tank.

 

Veni vidi vici I came, I saw, I fettled

 

I'm long out of practice conjugating Latin verbs and had to look up a good equivalent of "fettled". Best I could come up with was "reficere", "to restore or repair; to put right". Looking up the correct conjugation gives, "Veni, vidi, refeci."

Somehow, I was sure you wanted to know.

 

Quite right too Arch. Thank you. Alas, far removed from the classics, any mention of Julius Caesar conjures up for me a ‘Carry On’ movie line uttered by a dying Caesar, “Infamy, infamy, they’ve ALL got it in for me.”

 

''Et tu, Brute?''
Is, if I'm not mistaken, Shakespeare's last words of the First Dictator.

 

Wow! You didn’t waste any time getting round to that repair. One of the joys of being retired.
Excellent work John - as usual!

 

Julius was stabbed by Senators.*
Augustus died of old age.
Tibertus was smothered by Macro.
Caligula was killed by the Praetorian Guard at the arena.*
Claudius was poisoned by his wife.
Nero committed suicide when he heard the Senate had dispached soldiers to kill him.
Galba was killed by Otho loyalists.*
Otho committed suicide, afraid of murder by the pro Vitellius faction.
Vitellius was tied to a pillar and pelted with animal waste before being cut up by his subjects.*
Vespacian died from dysentery.
Titus died of fever.
Domitian was killed by his successor, Nerva and his own wife.*

Of Suetonius' 12 Caesars, five fell to the blade. Two more did themselves in -- fearing the above fate. Two were murdered more softly. Two from disease.
Only Augustus was voted Divinity by the Senate, and _we must assume_ entered Heaven as a God.

 

Don’t touch the figs.

 

I thought it was mushrooms...

 

John, how did you remove the hardened old wicks?

 

@Twoberth
Hiya Duncan. I filled the tank with paraffin and let them soak overnight. A combination of turning a raising mechanism control knob while grabbing at points along the width of wick with forceps and tugging resulted in each one easing out in one piece.

This is the better of the two, but I’ll be discarding it in favour of new ones.




Mike at The Base Camp is something of an authority on wick paraffinalia and he explained that original owners of twin-wick stoves would install a thicker wick than its pair in one burner.

That would have the higher output and various permutations of: one wick lit (higher or lower output); both wicks lit and whether one or both wicks were raised to maximum output or lowered to a simmer substituted for television back in the day - or some such thing (he lost me in the telling).

I ordered thicker and thinner wicks, not to play about with output (we have a TV) but to decide which gives the best movement raising and lowering a wick.

 

Not the first dictator. There were many "legal" dictators before Caesar.
Cincinnatus may perhaps be the most known. The guy who gave Ohio a city